Bricklin's design was based on the (paper) financial spreadsheet, a kind of document already used in business planning. (Some of Bricklin's notes for VisiCalc were scribbled on the back of a spreadsheet pad.) VisiCalc was probably not the first application to use a spreadsheet model, but it did have a number of original features, all of which continue to be fundamental to spreadsheet software. These include point-and-type editing, rangereplication and formulas that update automatically with changes to other cells.

VisiCalc is widely credited with creating the sudden demand for desktop computers that helped fuel the microcomputer boom of the early 1980s. Thousands of business people with little or no technical expertise found that they could use VisiCalc to create sophisticated financial programs. This makes VisiCalc one of the first killer apps.